


Warning Signs

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, Drabble, M/M, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: Éponine and Grantaire have a brief conversation about suicide.





	Warning Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Depression and this thing we call life continues to kick my ass and makes writing E/R next to impossible. Instead, have 1200 words of whatever the fuck this is.
> 
> Usual disclaimer with the added caveat: Anything I say about depression/mental illness is based solely on my own experiences and is not meant to be representative of all experiences with mental illness. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos.

“How long do you think it would be before anyone found my body?”

 Éponine took a drag of her cigarette and looked over at Grantaire, who was leaning on the railing of the bridge, staring down into the murky, swirling water of the creek that ran behind their apartment complex. “I’m sorry?” she said, as if she had misheard him.

 “If I killed myself,” Grantaire clarified, his voice calm, almost toneless, as if this was a standard topic of conversation. As if he’d thought about this many times before. “How long do you think it would be before anyone found my body?”

Éponine took her time in answering. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Depends on if you had plans with Joly and Bossuet, or if Enjolras came by to apologize, or Combeferre came by to apologize for Enjolras not apologizing…” She trailed off as Grantaire nodded, slowly, his expression distant. “Planning anything I should know about?”

Grantaire shot her a quick, tight smile. “Of course not,” he said easily, though his smile disappeared when he looked away from her. “Haven’t killed myself yet, after all.”

As if that was supposed to reassure her.

Éponine stabbed her cigarette out against the railing of the bridge, looking at Grantaire carefully. “Are you still seeing your therapist?” she asked. Grantaire just shrugged and Éponine sighed and turned, resting her hip against the rail and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I’m not your mom, R. I’m not gonna make you go to your therapist. Not when you know as well I do how important it is.”

She didn’t bring up the other things that she wasn’t going to do — that she wasn’t going to do again, because this was hardly their first time down this path. She wasn’t going to search his apartment for razor blades or pills or whatever else he was hiding. She wasn’t going to call Enjolras on him, to try to get the man to pay even an iota of attention to Grantaire and what he was going through and struggling with. She wasn’t going to ask Joly and Bossuet to keep an eye on him, though that was because they almost certainly already were.

She wasn’t going to go through it again.

Because Éponine had her own demons to deal with, and she wasn’t sure how far she’d make it down this path before they reared their ugly heads.

Grantaire shrugged again. “I’ll make an appointment with my therapist,” he offered, as reconciliation or distraction.

“Good,” Éponine said. Then, because she couldn’t _not_ ask, “Is this about Enjolras?”

Look, she was certainly not one to judge if Grantaire leaned towards the melodrama every time he had a spat with Enjolras. She’d been there and had made her own set of bad life choices because of a boy. But it would definitely make things easier if it was just another stupid fight or—

“No.”

Grantaire didn’t say the word quickly, or defensively, which told Éponine that he was probably telling the truth, that this didn’t really have anything to do with Enjolras. Which frankly worried her more than the alternative.

She took a deep breath and huffed a sigh, looking at Grantaire closely. “Are you ok?” she asked quietly. She could’ve worded the question better, really tried to suss out how Grantaire was doing, if this particularly dark line of thought was just momentary or a pattern or, hell, a recurring obsession.

But they had been friends for long enough that he knew when she was asking if he was ok, versus asking if he was _ok_.

It was a subtle difference.

“I don’t know,” Grantaire told her, tracing his finger idly against the rusting bridge rail. He looked up, meeting her eyes. “But I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

The word ‘yet’ hung between them, unspoken as always.

“Good,” Éponine said, and she hesitated, not sure what to say next. She could offer hollow words of comfort, could tell Grantaire just how much she would miss him and hate him if he ever did carry out that yet, could give him a litany of things he had to live for.

But she knew it wouldn’t do much good.

So instead she hesitated, and then started, “You know—”

“I know,” Grantaire said, cutting her off with a slight, sad smile.

He did.

She did.

Part of her did want to tell him that he’d break them all if he killed himself, if only because while Grantaire had never been one to care about himself, he loved his friends and would never want to purposefully hurt them.

But she knew as well as anyone that sometimes, sometimes that just wasn’t a good enough reason.

She worried about what would happen when Grantaire ran out of good enough reasons.

She worried about what would happen when she ran out of good enough reasons.

She worried about what would happen when all of the warning signs, the red flags, the ‘x’ on the treasure map towards Grantaire’s suicide all started to line up and form the unmistakable conclusion that Grantaire had been struggling to avoid for years. They’d played this game so many times, danced around this exact conversation so many times, discussed methods and half-formed plans — all as a ‘hypothetical’, of course.

And she wondered for him, just as she wondered for herself, if it would be something big that tipped him over the edge, that sent him down the path he couldn’t come back from, or if it would just be the slow buildup of tiny darknesses in his life.

For her, she guessed it would take something big. For him...well, for him she feared that one day, it would just all be too much. Because it always had been for him, a battle bigger than one anyone should have to fight.

And while Grantaire was a fighter, she had a feeling that this was one fight he might give up on sooner or later. Worst part was, she wasn’t entirely sure she could blame him.

And as bad as it sounded, it wasn’t her job to convince him not to. As harsh as the truth was, she had Azelma and Gavroche to look after and her own demons to keep at bay, and as much as Éponine loved Grantaire, she couldn’t be responsible for his emotional well-being on top of everything else.

It might just kill her if she tried.

But what she could do, and what she did, was to slide over to Grantaire and to nudge him companionably, the small touch saying more than any trite words she could offer: _“hang in there”_ or _“it gets better”_.

They both knew better.

“You good?” she asked instead.

Grantaire gave her a smile far closer to his usual grin that actually managed to reach his eyes. “Always,” he pronounced lazily.

“Good.” She punched him lightly on the arm and turned to trudge back up their apartment building, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. Over her shoulder, and far too casually to be actually casual, she told him, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

It didn’t mean much.

But it just might mean enough.


End file.
